Confident Johnny Woos, center, granted new trial in 1967, turns on the charm with Deputy Harvey LaRose, left, and Sheriff John W. Miller. GHOSTS-3: Slain Manager is State Theatre Spectre, Has Reserved Balcony Seat
October 19, 2011
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third and last in a series of ghostly stories of Bay City, offered as a Halloween treat.)
Far in the corner of the balcony of Bay City's State Theatre is a seat with a brass plaque marked "G-H-O-S-T"!
This seat is reserved for the ghost of Floyd Ackerman, manager of this theatre, then called the Bay, and the Regent Theatre across the street.
Floyd was killed Dec. 5, 1943, allegedly by Yuen "Johnny" Woos, a 22-year-old Korean born plumber's helper who had killed before. Woos had been sentenced to two years in the Ionia youth prison for slaying a Chinese man from Detroit who he felt was abusing his mother.
Upon his release from Ionia, Woos landed back in Bay City where he reportedly had attended T.L. Handy Junior High.
Theatres everywhere were busy in 1940s and Bay City was a hotbed of theatre and dramatic entertainment dating back to the lumbering days of the 19th century. Thousands of timber fellers with pockets full of cash hit town each spring, eager for entertainment -- especially that coming in bottles and corsets -- but also stage and screen productions.
Going to movies was the main entertainment besides radio, for the folks in the blue collar manufacturing town of about 50,000. Amazingly, there were 10 movie theatres with total seating capacity of 7,522 persons.
This was no ordinary burg; the trading region was extensive, ranging 220 miles north (to Sault Ste. Marie), 40 miles north to Mt. Pleasant and 60 miles east to Bad Axe.
Growth of the town mushroomed as the Industrial Revolution dawned in the late 1800s. Peddlers, many Jewish merchants, from Bay City with horse-drawn wagons and hand carts fanned out into the hinterlands, establishing a wholesale trade in remote wooded areas where few stores existed. Rural residents from the huge trading area made Bay City their shopping Mecca when they could get to town.
It is Sunday night, 5 December 1943, about 10:30 p.m. World War II is raging in Europe and also in the Pacific islands. Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, the U.S. Territory of Hawaii, just two years previously.
Ackerman, popular manager of the State and also the Regent across the street, takes $1,700 in weekend receipts to the bank. Ackerman is popular, often donning a tuxedo to preside at war bond sales. He is a minor celebrity among the local populace.
Woos, who had disguised himself by painting a fake scar on his cheek with stage makeup, would have been a marked man as an Asian in a town full of Germans, Poles and French Canadians.
Descending the stairs from the balcony where he had watched the movie, Woos skulked across the street to the Post Office. Woos follows Ackerman south on Washington to the People's Commercial Bank, to the night deposit box on Fifth.
Ackerman opens night deposit box, Woos strikes: "Stick 'em up!" he barks. Ackerman whirls, shouting "you've got to be kidding!" Startled, Woos fires twice, fatally wounding the beloved manager. A dozen passersby are witnesses, including a policeman. Ackerman dies at Mercy Hospital.
After a month-long manhunt Woos is tracked down by undercover state police detective John Olepa. The gumshoe discovers Woos blowing loot in gambling dens that dotted Washington Avenue in those days.
Police make an error when they enter Woos's rooming house and confiscate about $1,000 found under the floor. "Johnny, why did you do it?" were the first words from the judge's mouth at his hearing; --another error.
However, Woos pleads guilty and goes to prison for 24 years. He becomes an expert "jailhouse lawyer" and even writes phony articles cleverly posing as Japanese admirals and German U-boat commanders under pseudonyms for the Detroit News and other magazines.
His persistent appeal requests are futile for many years but finally he is freed in 1967 under a new Supreme Court decision, Gideon vs. Wainwright, holding defendants are entitled to effective legal representation, applied retroactively. Young lawyers Eugene Penzien and David Skinner, assistants to retired judge Ira Butterfield, convince a Pontiac jury to free Woos.
Facts that the police called the Korean Woos "a dirty Jap" and another man with a scar on his face was arrested the same time were key evidence in the trial. Woos lives another 32 years, dying in 1999 in Detroit. He periodically visits Bay City with gifts of candy for his lawyers and local officials who did not mistreat him.
Employees of the State Theatre have reported seeing a figure dressed in black in the balcony and sometimes in the basement. Perhaps it is a spectral Floyd Ackerman still seeking justice after all these years. ###
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